Hi all! This is the Hoshiko deck I took to APAC. My intention was to smurf a few rounds and bow out, but the universe had other plans, resulting in me pulling two consecutive all nighters and breaking a 5-year abstention from caffeine.

I Am Continuing to Do My Thing

While I do believe this is the era of shaper, I didn’t have much time to practice for this tournament cycle and Reg Anarch is the archetype I’ve always played my best netrunner with. I brought K2CP Hoshiko to both NANPC Boston and ACC and in neither case was thrilled with her performance. I feel like the way you win as runner in a meta with such a high ceiling for corp power level is by punishing awkward corp draws as aggressively and quickly as possible, and without reliable tutoring, Hosh will struggle with this.

When Life Hands You Problems

So I decided to bring a lower to the ground Hosh to APAC at a lean 50 cards, splitting my K2CP into a second boomerang and a nuka. K2CP is a heck of a card, but it’s also very hard to use in a tempo positive way, and if 75% of your games are against the Purple Triumvirate, tempo is the name of the game. I also added a second finality, which I am very happy with as a decision, as it is the fastest and easiest way to punish awkward corp draw (if the corp draws too many agendas/operations early game, you play it early and get to match point; if they draw too few, you can hold it to eat up the end game agendas). I will probably never play reg hosh with fewer than two finalities again, that card is wild.

Featured Singer

My intention was to play a round or two under a smurf and drop when I got tired and started playing poorly. Originally, I wanted to do the username “DeeP Fake” but that name was taken on jnet, so I decided to give a shout out to america’s local band cheekface. This was intended to be a secret, but I accidentally gave away my identity literally minutes after registering on Aesops. But, if you commit to a bit enough to open a gmail account under the name ‘Cheek Fakeson’, and a second gmail account as your recovery account under the name ‘Cheek Fakerson’, you’re gonna commit.

After losing round 1 to a banger PD deck, Hoshiko successfully submarined in Swiss, going 3-1 against Asa, Sports, and Big Ob, losing one more game to wiki’s PD (kudos to Fa for letting me tank for, like, 12 minutes on the final turn, one of those most interesting endgames I’ve played in a long time). Thankfully, PD was able to carry me through the tournament, going 4-0 against Reina, Ken, Kit, and Esa. In top cut, Hoshiko was very reliable against the purple people eaters, going 2-1 against 2 Asas and a Sports. It grew especially funny to do the top cut in the thinnest possible mask, and watching the commentators calling me DeeR and being like “oh never mind” gave me a good chuckle. Side note, I want the commentary every APAC to be as brilliantly unhinged at this year’s. Literally couldn’t nap between winners finals and grand finals because I was so enraptured.

Favorite games of the tournament:

https://www.jinteki.net/replay/84d94fc3-2b27-4d28-9a58-13f0bdae0770 (Hosh vs. Reg PD. Came down to thinnest of possible margins)

https://www.jinteki.net/replay/36541c87-d953-457e-a363-6119e2f222cc (Hosh vs. Big Ob. I love playing against unfair decks and this one did not disappoint)

https://www.jinteki.net/replay/b5c24641-4c17-4e5a-b4b2-692e4ca91d12 (Hosh vs. Sports. I consider this one of the worst possible matchups, and I was very happy with how I threaded the needle with this game).

Friends

Massive thank you’s to:

Snarebears and QtM for maintaining my “secret” and helping me practice the PD/Arissana matchup. I really appreciate our custody arrangement :D. A special thanks to Santa, Cat, Lucas, and Fi for helping me do cut math and chatting with me during very wee hours. Finally, a big shout out to my QtMate MrStyx for absolutely decimating everyone with a wildly cool sports list. Was an honor snaking through the cut with you.

Kror for organizing the smoothest online tournament I’ve ever done. Anyone who went can validate how talented and cool he is, but I want to point out that at the start of the tournament he said the meal break was estimated to begin at 2:10 am, and it began at 2:10 ON THE DOT. Legend.

The Netrunner community for being such a wonderful group of people to grow with as a gamer and a person, and finally…

JAI FOR BRINGING IT HOME!!!! One of my favorite parts of an activity like netrunner is the people who I become intertwined with competitively, and it truly is an honor to be the masked final boss of your division by 2 arc. Good luck getting 0.5th place next time!

CheeRs!